Strange Cooking Techniques

[zoe b]

I'm reading Edna O'Brien's book--The High Road

and loving it--she a fearless writer.

It's about a woman who is running from an affair gone wrong. She has just arrived in a little town on the coast of Spain.

Here's a description of the sea--

of such blueness that it seemed not to be water but a potion, of magical properties

.

So anyway, the narrator is doing a lot of walking around, and theres a lot of mention of pine needles underfoot.....and this got me thinking of this way we did mussels a few times--from Paula Wolfert's I think it was the Mediterranean Cookbook.

You get a wood plank and arrange mussels on it, hinge side up, and cover the mussels with a thick layer of pine needles. Then you light the pine needles and wait untill they have all burnt off--the mussels are cooked and ready to be eaten.

It was an incredibly messy thing to do--but it was fun--although if you'd had a few drinks it got kind of crazy.

The mussels were good, but always had quite a bit of roughage--somehow the pine needle ash got into them--if you saw the Bushmen cooking an ostrich egg for Anthony Bourdain a few weeks ago, there were some similarities.

But as soon as it warms up I intend to cook mussels this way again--anyone have any unusual cooking methods to share?

Zoe

[Carolyn Tillie]

A dozen years ago I was on a Mini Cooper car rally through the Arizona dessert. My BF at the time had pre-prepared sandwich-sized meatballs and his "special sauce," assembling just before the start of the ralley onto large rolls, wrapping them multiple times in Saran wrap and foil and placing them in the engine compartment.

By the time we had our first stop, two or three hours into the rally, we had the most amazing meatball sandwiches!

[Carrot Top]

Your description of the cooking method reminded me very much of Maine lobster bakes - a pit is dug near the border of the beach. You then line it with large flat rocks, build a fire on top of the rocks with lots of driftwood (or wood brought, or charcoal, but naturally driftwood gives the best romantic feel), let it burn down to redhot coals, throw some seaweed from the beach on top of that, then add lobsters, corn on the cob, little potatoes, and maybe some clams. Cover with more seaweed and/or the soil you'd dug out before (sometimes with a tarp underneath) and bake till done.

The recipe you mention also reminds me of the French way of cooking bass with fennel leaves, outdoors. The pine needle element is surprising in the recipe. . .I'm wondering if it is a *real* recipe or if the author was using the metaphor of the slightly-angry, disconcerting pine-needle feel and taste on the otherwise-delicious food to add to the mood of her story. . .(people who like "facts" often think these conjunctions completely nuts, but people who use intuition as a path through life can see the relationship )

P.S. Was it actually pine needles that was in Paula Wolfert's recipe? It would be sad to have to disprove my romantic, metaphoric point with mere facts. . . but if so, I wonder where the recipe came from, geographically, and the "why" of pine needles as opposed to any other thing that could be used. . .flavor-wise, pine would not be my choice if there were anything else at all growing around the area that could be used. . .pine has that scent to me of clean linoleum floors. . .

Edited February 4, 2007 by Carrot Top (log)

[Carrot Top]

A dozen years ago I was on a Mini Cooper car rally through the Arizona dessert. My BF at the time had pre-prepared sandwich-sized meatballs and his "special sauce,"

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I love the idea of Mini Coopers barreling through a desert, with meatballs as the meal!

Great visual image for a movie script. . .

[rlibkind]

A dozen years ago I was on a Mini Cooper car rally through the Arizona dessert. My BF at the time had pre-prepared sandwich-sized meatballs and his "special sauce,"

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I love the idea of Mini Coopers barreling through a desert, with meatballs as the meal!

Great visual image for a movie script. . .

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The Italian Job redux redux?.

Edited February 4, 2007 by rlibkind (log)

[Carrot Top]

The Italian Job redux redux?.

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Yeah. I didn't see that movie, but just looked it up on the "official site". Six hunky hovering guys and one sultry Charlize Theron, huh? Who needs meatballs, I ask you.

[Carolyn Tillie]

Keep in mind these were the original British Mini Coopers -- not the silly German knock-offs! I drove a '62 purple Mini Moke. There were about two dozen of us.

We also did a Mexico to Canada run and the best food memories of that trip included stopping at the now-defunct Petaluma Cheese Factory for curds and some pie shop off the beaten track in Oregon.

[Carrot Top]

Keep in mind these were the original British Mini Coopers -- not the silly German knock-offs! I drove a '62 purple Mini Moke. There were about two dozen of us.

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You have become my romantic heroine in one fell swoop, Carolyn. Meatballs roasted on the open carburetor and all.

Keep up the good work.

[zoe b]

meatball sandwiches, a real Mini and the desert--that is fabulous, Caroline!

I want to do that right now....

and I've never participated in a lobster bake on the beach--that would be very high on my list of wonderful experiences

"P.S. Was it actually pine needles that was in Paula Wolfert's recipe? It would be sad to have to disprove my romantic, metaphoric point with mere facts. . . but if so, I wonder where the recipe came from, geographically, and the "why" of pine needles as opposed to any other thing that could be used. . .flavor-wise, pine would not be my choice if there were anything else at all growing around the area that could be used. . .pine has that scent to me of clean linoleum floors. . . "

sorry to pop yer bubble, Karen--the dish isn't in O'Brien's book, only on Wolfert's.

I don't have it any more--why I got rid of this cookbook I don't know--it was during a mad divesting frenzy--I

ll end up buying it again now, I know--

but I don't remember what country the recipe was from--you don't get pine sol--it's more charred resiny.

I'm sure it's authentic--she's very reliable on that score.

edited--ok, I googled to see if I could find out more about the recipe

http://www.paula-wolfert.com/books/swf_reviews.html

this is a review of another Wolfert book where she has an indoor version of the recipe--and it's from the Charente.

Z

Edited February 4, 2007 by zoe b (log)

[menon1971]

I wonder where the recipe came from, geographically, and the "why" of pine needles as opposed to any other thing that could be used. . .flavor-wise, pine would not be my choice if there were anything else at all growing around the area that could be used. . .pine has that scent to me of clean linoleum floors. . .

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Perhaps with Retsina.

[Carrot Top]

Perhaps with Retsina.

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Yeah, that'll do it. Yeah.

[Bonnie Ruth]

I'm reading Edna O'Brien's book--The High Road

and loving it--she a fearless writer.

It's about a woman who is running from an affair gone wrong. She has just arrived in a little town on the coast of Spain.

I don't have any particularly unusualcooking methods to share but wanted to say YES to Edna O'Brien's The High Road. One of my favorite books ever, just wonderful.

[Carrot Top]

sorry to pop yer bubble, Karen--the dish isn't in O'Brien's book, only on Wolfert's.

http://www.paula-wolfert.com/books/swf_reviews.html

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Ah. . .don't worry about that bubble, Zoe. I have plenty more where that came from.

Nice recipes, there.

I would try the pine-needle thing, maybe. First I'd have to catch my woodsman. I don't *do* pine-needle collection. (Too messy on the fingernails, you know. )

[jgm]

I've posted this before, but this definitely fits in the category of "strange cooking techniques"

Lava Cooking

[Carrot Top]

As I woke up this morning, all of these popped into my mind. No idea why, but anyway.

Baking on bed of salt

Roasting inside closed pastry crust or inside clay

Simmering inside a sheep's stomach lining. (Or, I imagine, any other stomach lining one could find. But maybe the animal has to be a ruminant. )

Stacking multiple bamboo steamers always seemed an incredibly creative cooking method to me - not "strange", but thought I'd include it anyway . . .

[Carolyn Tillie]

Keep in mind these were the original British Mini Coopers -- not the silly German knock-offs! I drove a '62 purple Mini Moke. There were about two dozen of us.

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You have become my romantic heroine in one fell swoop, Carolyn. Meatballs roasted on the open carburetor and all.

Keep up the good work.

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I should be so adventurous now! Actually, for the first time in my life I live with a dishwasher and have contemplated the "cooking" of a whole fish in the dishwasher. It was discussed in another thread, but I believe the gist is that the fish is first wrapped well in Saran wrap, then double or triple wrapped in aluminum foil before being put through a wash cycle.

[zoe b]

I actually haven't tried any of the esoteric methods you all have mentioned except steaming--but to combine two of Karen's thoughts--I've always wanted to do a chicken covered in a salt crust--hitting anything with a hammer before eating it seems like fun.

And it'w weird how when you think of something it pops up everywhere--just picked up The Trout Point Lodge Cookbook at a thrift store and there's some mussel baking with pine needles happening in it.

The authors saw a segment about doing this on Canadian TV.

[insomniac]

The lobster bake you describe Karen is very close to what in NZ Maoris call the hangi, (Fijians call it lovo, in New Guinea it's a mumu) except that the food is wrapped in banana leaves or similar and then wet sacking is thrown on top followed by soil and the food (both hunks of meat and veg)and cooks for several hours. Smells divine when the pit is opened and the food is delicious and smoky.

Also reminds me of beggar's chicken, love the tea-like flavour the leaves impart to the chicken flesh which just falls off the bone......mmmmmm

[Carrot Top]

Yummy.

Just thought of another "strange" cooking method. Smoking fish or meat or poultry but not outside, but rather, in the oven. "Oven-smoked". I've done it several times.

Oh! How about "hundred year old eggs". Aren't they "cooked" by being buried in a certain soil and mineral mixture?

(Edited to change "thousand" to "hundred". Zeros. How can a nothing stand for a something, I ask you. )

Edited February 9, 2007 by Carrot Top (log)

[Gifted Gourmet]

Cooking cannelini in a flask is another "different method" of cooking ...

This recipe employs a very old technique that is more than just a gimmick. In classic French cuisine, it's called a bain-marie, where you place a cooking vessel inside a pot or pan of hot water to provide gentle heat all around. The key to the method in this case is that it uses very little liquid so the beans retain all of their flavor.

and some cook in brown paper bags as well ... nothing is too bizarre with a bit of imaginative preparation ...

underground cooking: Hawaiians roast a whole pig in the ground, in dug-out firebeds lined with banana leaves .. the  New England clam bake steams shellfish, corn, and other foods right in the sandy beach, not quite six-feet-under, topped with clumpy, salty, watery seaweed.

source for quote ... Edited February 9, 2007 by Gifted Gourmet (log)

[Kouign Aman]

Ceviche uses an interesting 'cooking' method.

I've had eggs and corn on the cob cooked by being suspended in geysers and hot springs.

[SheenaGreena]

stuffing a can of beer into a chicken's oriface (sp?) is pretty strange.

I had this once at a friend's outdoor bbq party 2-3 years ago and it was some of the juciest chicken I have ever had.

[Shalmanese]

I think it was either the old Joy of Cooking or Larousse that had a recipe for potatos cooked in resin.

[SuzySushi]

Cooking ingredients wrapped in plastic wrap in boiling water. I think it's supposed to be a modern sub. for cooking ingredients wrapped in cloth. I've seen two such recipes prepared this way (can't lay my fingers on the sources right now): one a recipe for a French sausage, and one for a Japanese savory custard.

[shellfishfiend]

Cooking ingredients wrapped in plastic wrap in boiling water. I think it's supposed to be a modern sub. for cooking ingredients wrapped in cloth. I've seen two such recipes prepared this way (can't lay my fingers on the sources right now): one a recipe for a French sausage, and one for a Japanese savory custard.

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The Commander's Kitchen cookbook has a chicken salad recipe where the chicken is wrapped in plastic wrap before it is boiled. They say it keeps the meat moist.